"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on Blu-ray disc

30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition of Spielberg's Wide-Eyed
Dream

By Jim Bray

The "Other Big Sci-Fi/Special Effects film of 1977," Steven Spielberg's
"CE3K" is a space nut's fantasy come true, but a film that, next to its
contemporary "Star Wars," seems a mite dated in the 21st century.

Compared with George Lucas' space adventure it's also a somewhat forgotten
film, and that's a shame. It's a film that deserves a loving treatment
for home video, especially in this new world of high definition. Fortunately, as is often the case, Sony Home Entertainment has come through
in spades with a delightful Blu-ray release.

Richard Dreyfuss is Roy Neary, the film's "everyman" hero. He's a power
company employee who, when sent out to look into a blackout, has a close
encounter of the second kind that not only leaves him sunburned, but which
implants into his mind - well, we aren't sure until much later in the
film.

All we know is that he becomes one strangely obsessed individual and
it costs him his job and, eventually, his family as he tries to find out what the heck
it was that happened to him.

He isn't alone. Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) had an encounter as well
- more than one, in fact, and one of them turned her life around as the
aliens grabbed her toddler son right from her hands. Others have also shared
the contact, though Guiler's appears to have been by far the most intense.

Meanwhile, UFO investigator Claude Lacombe (director Francois
Truffault), his interpreter (Bob Balaban) and their team are crossing
the globe as other strange things are happening, like the return of a long
disappeared air wing as well as musical notes raining down from the sky.

The story lines converge at Wyoming's Devil's Tower, a volcanic anomaly
that provides a beautifully otherworldly location for what turns out to
be an alien landing and visit. The government, naturally, doesn't want
any witnesses to this interplanetary fete, at least until it's a fait accompli, and concoct a scheme to evacuate
everyone within "eyeshot" of the Devil's Tower.

Despite that, Neary and Guiler find their ways to Wyoming, swimming upstream
against the outward bound tide of people as if they were human salmon
on their way to spawn. They eventually escape and evade the government
forces and after comin' round the mountain they discover "The Dark Side of the Moon,"
the American base set up to facilitate and study the alien landing.

What follows is about half an hour of heart warming special effects sequences
in which the aliens and humans meet and greet, and one special (and very
lucky!) human is invited aboard the huge alien mother ship to return with
it to the stars.

Director Steven Spielberg's script is positive and hopeful, though more than a
tad schmaltzy and more than a touch naive in places, but on the whole
the film still holds up reasonably well. There's a pervading and very welcome
sense of awe and wonder that makes the film an uplifting experience.

Dreyfuss does a fine job as "everyman," as does Teri Garr as the wife
who sees her husband falling into a pit of what she's afraid is something
far more serious than a case of mental illness. Dillon does a good job
of portraying the mother at her wit's end, and Balaban is fine as the
interpreter. Truffault, not known as much for his acting chops as for his direction, is
delightful as the French UFO investigator.

CE3K is a BIG movie. In fact, much of it, including the entire final
sequence at the mountain base, was shot in a gigantic blimp hangar in
Mobile, Alabama because there was no other place large enough to house
the huge set. It was also, along with Star Wars, a breakthrough in special
effects technology and yet another example of the quality of composer
John Williams' musical scores.

The Blu-ray disc brings together the best of the original film, the inferior
"Special Edition" that was released a couple of years later, and the eventual "Director's cut". All three versions play from the same main menu, and you can access "A View From Above," which has pop ups appear on screen to let you know when a scene has been changed from the original version. The "Director's Cut" is the best of the bunch, though the original version is a close second.

The Blu-ray presentation is in the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio, with widescreen 1080p video that in places makes the movie look as if it were shot last week. Some scenes are a little soft and at time even out of focus, but this is undoubtedly from the original source because when the Blu-ray disc is good, it's excellent. It's so good you can nearly make out matte lines occasionally, and the ship discovered in the Gobi desert is revealed as a model, albeit an excellent one.

The high definition treatment does pop at least one balloon, in that the first alien seen emerging from the mother ship is so obviously a puppet it's nearly laughable. Before, it was nearly lost in the bright white light that dazzles your eyes, and we prefer to remember it that way. And the night sky outside the Guilers' farm house exhibits the constellation Orion clearly which, since Orion is a winter constellation and CE3K is set during warm weather, gives the shot away as special effects. Good ones, though!

The
audio is offered in dts 5.1 HD Master Audio and Dolby Digital True HD. It's about as good as you can expect from a 30 year old flick. It's quite clean and fairly dynamic, but it made us wish it had been recorded in the digital domain originally. We were surprised to find there isn't a lot of surround, though when it's used it's used quite effectively (for example, when UFO's are flying by your).

Extras include an entire second disc of stuff, including a retrospective with Spielberg himself, a documentary on the making of CE3K, storyboard to scene comparisons, a photo gallery and plenty more. That "plenty more" includes a featurette dating back to the film's 1977 release and deleted scenes.

Not satisfied yet? Okay, how about a poster that gives you all the "View from Above" info without interrupting the movie and - get this - a thick booklet full of photos, bios, and quotes.

It's a substantial package, as it should be, and fits the "ultimate edition" title quite well.

Naturally, it's the movie that's the most important and we're quite happy with how the Blu-ray format has treated it.